Grace Yasumura

Grace Yasumura (she/her) is an assistant curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), where she has co-curated the exhibition, The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture (November 8, 2024–September 14, 2025), which considers the intertwined histories of race and American sculpture.

February 2025Critics Page

Toward Freeing the Goddess from her Bodice

By and

Contrary to modern feminist logics, Goddess imaginary landscapes do not create a powerful modeling device for women but in fact echo the male desire to control ideologies pertaining to fertility and creation. My work is invested in freeing the Goddess from the male gaze, freeing her from the sexualized and/or virginal representations that dominate the cultural imaginary.

Rina Banerjee, In Mute Witness at the outskirts and out of center she forms a final creased edge of makeshift settlements, a dark and iridescent thorn of horn pierces all home with the hard and the green of unripe fruit, 2015/23. Wood spindles, aluminum cloth, waxed nylon, wood, steel armature, Murano Glass horns, rooster feather, silk tassel, cowry shell, hemp cord, silkscreen print silk cloth, red cotton thread, acrylic paint, tribal jewelry, abacá fibers, gourd, 5 feet 8 inches x 3 feet x 5 feet. Courtesy the artist. © 2024 Rina Banerjee. Photo: Lucia RM Martino, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

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